Jan. 30, 2020

Owl in the Olive Tree post on "It Takes Social Science to Counter the Power of Russia's Malign Influence Campaign"

Minerva-funded researchers Scott Atran, Richard Davis, and Hasan Davulcu's Owl in the Olive Tree post on "It Takes Social Science to Counter the Power of Russia's Malign Influence Campaign". Despite recent technical innovations, such as the use of social media, Russia’s current malign influence campaigns follow those of its Soviet predecessor. Unless we understand these strategies, we remain vulnerable to them. The new National Security Strategy acknowledges the return of great power competition along with...

Jan. 13, 2020

Robert Jervis's new article, "On the Current Confrontation with Iran"

Most obviously, humility is in order. Those of us of a certain age can remember when many thought that the 1972 mining of Hanoi and Haiphong would lead to something worse than the Cuban missile crisis. In the mid-1980s, few analysts thought the Cold War would soon end. Many journalists and not a few scholars claim deep knowledge of the Middle East and the ability to predict how everyone will react, but we should recognize that the layer of regional expertise in the United States is...